


(and if i get burned) at least we were electrified

by akosmia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, F/F, Fem Reylo, Praise Kink if you squint, Regency Romance, Secret Relationship, Vaginal Fingering, fem kylo ren, it's all about the hands!!!, liberal use of endearments, secret romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:54:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29046468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akosmia/pseuds/akosmia
Summary: “I missed you terribly last night,” Rey murmurs, then, against her mouth. The words are pressed right against her lips, like a secret only Breha can keep safe. “I spent the whole time looking for you. Why weren’t you at the ball?”Because I couldn’t bear to watch you dance all night with awful men who don’t even know you,she wants to say.Because it would kill me. Because I know what we have is only fleeting and temporary and I shall lose you and I cannot bear it.Instead, she bends down and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth.-- or: Miss Breha Solo should be preoccupied with finding the perfect match that will lead her to marriage. Too bad, then, that she has eyes only for Miss Palpatine.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 26
Kudos: 65





	(and if i get burned) at least we were electrified

**Author's Note:**

> hi and welcome to my first fic of 2021!! starting the year right with gay pining, can you believe?
> 
> i started this right after i watched a few episodes of bridgerton during christmas break when i desperately wanted a lesbian version of it, so, though obviously regency-inspired, you can all imagine this fic does not aim at historical accuracy when it comes to language, clothes and everything else. i know highborn ladies were probably not able to have affairs with other ladies, but that's the beauty of fics, i suppose! also, you'll notice i have used the words "corset" and "stays" interchangeably, may the fashion historians i have spent hours watching on youtube have mercy on my soul
> 
> the song i have used at the beginning of each section is dress, by taylor swift (obviously), which is probably the reason why this fic even exists in the first place
> 
> i hope you'll enjoy this silly little fic and thank you for sticking with me even when i write self-indulgent regency romances ❤

**(i)**

_our secret moments in a crowded room_ _  
__they’ve got no idea about me and you_

The candlelight flickers, painting soft shadows on the walls and on the faces of all the presents, when Miss Rey Palpatine enters the ballroom. 

Her delicately coiled hair catches the trembling light and shines almost auburn in the warm glow, granting her an ethereal look. A few wisps and curls, free from their bounds, fall over her forehead and brush against her cheekbones as tenderly as the touch of a lover, softening the sharp, though still lovely, lines of her face. The pale blue gown she’s wearing compliments her fair complexion almost unbearably well, bringing out the creamy tones of her skin, and her eyes shine brighter than the small tiara she’s placed on her head. 

Her appearance immediately elicits quite a bustle. 

All eyes turn into her direction, as if to admire an exquisite painting hanging in a newly inaugurated section of Chandrila Hall. A murmur arises – troubled debutantes whispering behind their fans, irritated _mamas_ letting out a disappointed sigh, and overjoyed suitors rushing to her side with a soft noise of heels against the marble floors.

It’s incredibly difficult to see more of her after that. The swarm of suitors immediately surrounds her, hiding her from view – and yet, anyone could at least catch a glimpse of the luminous smile gracing her rosy lips, and the sight would be enough to melt even the hardest of hearts. 

For all intents and purposes, Miss Palpatine is a marvel.

Upon her arrival, Miss Breha Solo feels her breath catch in her throat. Something seems to have taken hold of her heart, as if a terrible weight had settled on her chest, preventing her from breathing.

She wonders if the room’s too crowded. 

She wonders, too, if she, herself, believes such a ridiculous statement. 

“She is most beautiful,” Miss Rose Tico murmurs, next to her, her eyes trained to Miss Palpatine, just like everyone else’s, as she makes her way to the crowd with her chaperone. Rose’s voice carries no hint of jealousy – only sincere admiration when she adds, “The diamond of the season, isn’t she?”

Breha doesn’t know how to reply to that. 

After all, it is a hard feat, to pay attention to anything that is happening around her, when all she can think of is the erratic fluttering of her heart, twisting in an exquisitely painful way that sends thrills down her spine. 

It is such a new experience – this pain that borders on _pleasure_ , excruciating and yet delicious, these shivers that wrack her body like a storm, this trembling of her hands, as she hides them behind her back. It seems to her as if her heart were thundering in her ribcage, alerting everyone of its earth-shattering _longing_.

She’d never known a heart could feel so much, before Miss Palpatine stumbled into her life. 

“Yes,” she hears herself say, though she’s not quite aware of the sounds tumbling out of her lips. Her breath leaves her mouth in a short sigh, when she murmurs, “She is quite beautiful.”

A single curl falls on Miss Palpatine’s face, brushing against the sharp line of her cheekbone, pink from the flush as she talks to her prospect suitors. Breha feels her hands trembling again by her side, as if her fingers _ached_ from the need to move that stray curl away, tucking it behind that delicately-shaped ear she dies to trace with the pads of her fingers. 

Miss Tico lets out a soft sigh, tilting her head to the side as if to better look at her.

“I wonder what purpose we serve here,” she starts, her voice somewhat wistful. Breha turns into her direction, confused, and Rose smiles, as she adds, “I am starting to believe we are purely decorative. Why would anyone even look our way, when she’s out there, charming everyone?”

_I do not want anyone to look my way_ , Breha thinks. _Except for one person._

Miss Palpatine is smiling – the bright, luminous smile she gifts to all her suitors – and she’s taking Lord Hux’s gloved hand, her fingers wrapped in the finest silk Breha has ever seen. He leads her to the dancefloor and she moves gracefully, the gauzy fabric of her gown dancing around her in a mesmerizing way. Even her dance card, secured to her wrist, seems to float with some sort of elegance around her. When they catch the light of the candles, the jewels sewn into her bodice seem to bathe her in radiance. 

Breha feels her heart twist again in her chest.

“Do not be absurd,” she tells Rose. She tries to curl her lips into an encouraging smile, though she’s not sure she succeeds at that. “You are lovely.” Rose seems to be on the cusp of protesting, because she’s furrowing her brows in a menacing frown Breha knows too well and she’s opening her mouth, but before she can, Breha adds, “And if I’m not mistaken, Mr Storm is coming our way and I suspect he’s going to ask you for a dance.”

She is not lying – Finn Storm is making his way through the crowd toward this part of the room, a hopeful smile on his lips and a bright light in his eyes. It’s painfully clear for everyone to see that he is awfully smitten with Miss Tico, as anyone would rightfully be.

Rose seems to see him too, because she muffles a squeal and grasps Breha’s arm, her fingers gripping her limb almost too forcefully. For such a small woman, Breha has learned over the years that Miss Tico is incredibly _strong_ when it comes to make her point.

“Oh, Breha,” she sighs, almost dreamily. The soft curve of her lips could not be mistaken for anything else but a love-stuck smile. “Do you really think he will? He is so _charming_.”

Breha lets out a soft laughter, squeezing her friend’s hand back. “So are you.”

It is true – dressed in her finest gown, all white and silver, and with flowers in her hair, Miss Tico is a vision, bright as any star. The smile that breaks on her face softens her features and gives her a radiance that makes Breha’s heart fill with a familiar warmth.

“But–” Rose starts, after a moment, the smile disappearing into a frown as her gaze settles on her. “I do not want to leave you here alone. I wish someone would invite you, too. Hasn’t Captain Dameron returned yet from the campaign? You seemed to enjoy his company lately.”

Breha’s smile softens. 

Oh, how she wants to reassure her dearest friend that she does not need to heed such worries. That she needs no Captain Dameron, no dashing suitor, no bumbling man who’ll step on her toes and spin her around as if she were no more than a moderately pretty mannequin in an exceptionally pretty dress. That she shall gladly spend the rest of the night – God, of her _life_ – here, in this small alcove they’ve found for themselves, where she could follow the graceful, mesmerizing movements of Miss Palpatine’s skirts as she dances. The tantalizing slope of her neck, arched to the side as she sways to the music. The soft skin of her shoulder blades, left slightly uncovered by the low cut of her gown.

A flush rises to her cheeks and she has to look away.

“Do not be foolish, my dear friend. I will be perfectly alright here,” she tells Rose, instead. Her heart flutters again in her chest, as if terrified to have been caught _wanting_. “I do not care much for dancing in any case. At least I can spare Captain Dameron the horror of dancing with me.”

Rose opens her mouth again, probably to protest, but Mr Storm arrives right at this moment, asking Miss Tico the honor of the next dance. She blushes and giggles and nods, so radiantly happy Breha feels as if washed in the coattails of their joy. Then she takes his hand and throws one last look at Breha, as if to apologize, before he leads her to the dancefloor. 

By the time the music starts again, they’re both smiling wildly and their delight in each other’s presence seems to brighten the whole room. 

Breha has never seen two people look more in love.

She lingers a bit more on them with her gaze, as if relishing in their mutual joy and stubbornly refusing to look someplace else, but then her eyes fall on Miss Palpatine again and– 

Oh, her heart jumps in her chest as if it had been _pierced_ , because– 

– Miss Palpatine is looking _back_.

She’s dancing again with Lord Hux. The music is slower, tender, and they’re closer than before – though still maintaining a respectful distance between their bodies. Her gloved hand is resting on his shoulder, while he’s placed his on her back, brushing against the fine silk of her dress. He’s murmuring something – probably boasting about the latest renovations in his country estate – and she’s nodding, as if entranced by his captivating tale, but when Breha catches her gaze, Miss Palpatine is looking at _her_ and there’s a secret, private smile on her rosy lips. 

**(ii)**

_there’s an indentation in the shape of you_ _  
__made your mark on me, a golden tattoo_

There is a special kind of pleasure in tracing Rey’s freckles with her bare fingers that Breha treasures, as if it were her fondest memory. 

One, two, three – Breha follows their luminous path, as if they were a constellation guiding her home, golden against her fair skin. There’s so many of them – on the charming bridge of her nose, on the delicate curve of her shoulders, on the inviting outline of her breasts. Breha has spent a considerable amount of time studying them, as if she were a scholar, pouring all her attention over ancient texts with all the reverence and devotion they require. 

There’s even a small pattern on the inside of her left thigh, she has discovered – one she’s kissed thoroughly, her lips pressed against her soft skin as she undid her cotton stockings from their garter and let them slide down her long legs, as Rey panted and begged above her, a symphony only her ears have the privilege to listen to. 

It is a difficult thing to forget, she finds out. 

Now, Rey lets out a soft, pleased sigh as Breha continues her intent ministrations. Her fingers linger, like a kiss, against her right shoulder, as if the pattern of freckles on her skin were a musical score she were trying her best to commit to her memory, only to play it against her bedsheets at night. 

“Oh, Breha,” she murmurs, arching her back just slightly as if to bask into her touch. The fine cotton sheets of Breha’s bed are rumpled and creased between their bodies, clinging to their limbs in a tangled chaos, and yet it feels surprisingly intimate, as if they had built a safe world for the two of them, in which they could hide for as long as they wanted. “You have quite a fascination for my freckles, haven’t you?”

Breha hums, quietly, then gazes up at Rey. 

Bathed in the light of the sun that filters through the heavy curtains of Breha’s room, Rey is a vision – fair skin, golden freckles, a waterfall of chestnut hair that fans around her face on the stark white pillow, and a smile that seems to tug at some string of her heart Breha had never knew the existence of, until Miss Palpatine pried her ribcage open to take a look at the aching creature in her chest. 

There’s something soft, delicate about this scene. The sun rays are not harsh and unforgiving as they often are, casting everything in sharp contrast – instead, the light seems to caress her body with the same tenderness of Breha’s fingers, as they make their way from her shoulders to her collarbones. 

It is a quiet, languid thing – this secret moment they have stolen for each other, Rey lying on her back, Breha with her head propped on her elbow, Rey’s fingers threading through her hair and a heartbeat frantically fluttering in the small space between their bodies. 

Breha thinks she could spend a brief eternity in such a moment.

“Does it bother you?” she asks, then, quietly. 

Her fingers trace the sharp dip of Rey’s collarbones, right where she’s pressed a worshipful kiss just a few moments ago, as Rey threw her head back as Breha’s clumsy fingers brought her to her peak.

Rey smiles, then leans in to nuzzle against her cheek. There’s something so intimate about this Breha feels her breath catch in her throat, as if Rey had pressed down her chest with the hand that is not currently lost in her hair.

“Not at all. I love it when you touch me,” she murmurs, her voice trembling just a bit when Breha’s fingers start to slide down, down, toward her breasts. “Whenever we part, I cannot stop myself from longing for your touch.”

Her lips are an inch away from hers and Breha finds it only natural to bend down to kiss her, softly. Rey smiles into the kiss and brings her closer, one hand buried into her hair, the other coming to rest on her side – fingers splayed against her naked skin, eliciting a trail of goosebumps in their wake, the sensation so familiar and foreign at the same time. 

Kissing Rey – Breha thinks she could never tire of it. The softness of her mouth, the beauty of the sighs that escape her lips, the brush of her tongue as she tentatively coaxes her mouth open – it all comes to her as a rush to the head, golden and incandescent.

It feels like happiness. It tastes like joy.

“I missed you terribly last night,” Rey murmurs, then, against her mouth. The words are pressed right against her lips, like a secret only Breha can keep safe. “I spent the whole time looking for you. Why weren’t you at the ball?”

_Because I couldn’t bear to watch you dance all night with awful men who don’t even know you_ , she wants to say. _Because it would kill me. Because I know what we have is only fleeting and temporary and I shall lose you and I cannot bear it._

Instead, she bends down and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. Soft, almost _loving_.

Dangerous.

“I had a terrible migraine. Besides, you know extremely well how ill-suited I am for a ball,” she tells her, pressing a smile against her fair skin as she trails down to kiss her neck. Rey hums, her hand playing lazily with her hair, wrapping the curls around her delicate fingers. “My dance instructor used to say I have two left feet and no sense of music whatsoever. In fairness, I do not think anyone noticed my absence.”

Rey’s words bring forth a painful, yet beautiful, twist of her heart. “I did.”

It is such a wild thing, this feeling – this aching of her heart whenever Rey is near, as if this eager creature in her chest died to capture her attention. If she weren’t careful, she’d think it could be love. 

If it were, it would be a short-lived thing, like a flower destined to bloom and wither in the same unforgiving season.

But how else to call it, this eagerness and this warmth? This sense of belonging lodging right in her throat, everytime Rey murmurs sweet nothings into her ear and tenderly holds her through the aftershocks of the pleasure she gives her? This familiarity in the way their bodies fall back together, as if they both longed for this moment of blessed silence in which they are lying in her bed and smiling at each other, like love-struck fools? This furious beating of her heart whenever Rey looks at her and _sees_ her, this desperate creature that she is?

She does not know, so she presses a kiss to the outline of her breast, as if to distract herself. 

Rey sighs again, her back arching off the mattress to chase down her touch, her lips, her body. As if she hungered for Breha as much as Breha hungers for her. 

“Will you be at the ball next week?” she asks, then. Her voice trembles only slightly, but Breha has learned her – her body, her mind, her soul, everything about her – so thoroughly it is an easy thing, to spot the eagerness and the want in her words. “At Hosnian Hall?”

Breha’s hand comes to brush against her breast, fondling it almost tenderly. She kisses the freckles there, one by one as if they were a piece of poetry she died to learn by heart, then her lips close around her nipple, her tongue brushing against the pebbled bud. 

Rey lets out a surprised moan.

“ _Breha_ ,” she sighs. Her fingers twist into her hair, tugging at the strands. “You are not being fair, Miss Solo. I asked you a question.”

Breha lets go of her nipple just to smile up at her, both exasperated and smug at the same time.

“Yes,” she replies, then. Her hand comes to caress her side, counting all the ribs underneath her fair skin, before it settles on her hip. “Yes, I will be there. I think my mother would have my head on a silver plate if I refused to attend another ball. She wants me to–” She grimaces. “–find a suitable prospect for marriage before I turn into a spinster.”

Rey laughs at her expression and the sound of it fills her bedchamber. It is a peculiar feeling, sunshine dripping down her spine – as if someone had poured honey in her chest, sweet and thick. Her face lights up with her laughter, dimples appearing on her cheeks, her freckles turning into stars.

She is so beautiful sometimes it hurts to look at her.

Still, it feels as if she could not look away.

“You do not need to appear so disgusted,” she says, then tugs at her hair to bring her closer. Breha complies, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. “At least we shall see each other.”

“Mh,” she breathes out, against her mouth. “You make a compelling argument.”

Rey laughs again, softly, and her body trembles against hers. Breha finds it almost _domestic,_ a precious bliss she cannot bring herself to ever give up. 

She wonders if this is what being married feels like – if the love poems she so devotedly read over the years, hiding from her mother’s displeasure, have ever talked about this quiet sense of contentment that spreads through her limbs whenever she is with Rey.

“I know. I have been told I have a very sharp wit and a terribly stubborn attitude.” Her smile turns softer, then, as her palm comes to rest against her cheek, her thumb brushing against her moles. “Where are your parents, anyway? I have been sneaking into your room for a month now and I have yet to see them.”

It feels easier to bury her head in the crook of her neck, littering her skin with small little kisses. As if she could hide her loneliness and longing like this, against the soft skin of her collarbones, before Rey can read them off the lines of her face.

She is such a keen observer – Breha feels naked when Rey is around, a nakedness that has little to do with clothes and everything to do with the effortless way with which she seems to know her soul.

“Business trip,” she murmurs, quietly. Rey cards her fingers through her long, black hair, as if to soothe her – God, as if she _knew_ – , and when she raises her head to look at her, there’s tenderness written all over the beautiful lines of her face. Breha cannot stand it, this tugging of her heart. “Do not worry for me, please. It is not unusual. They are gone so often I do not even pay attention to it. In fact, I’m quite used to being alone.”

Rey’s expression morphs into something softer, if that is even possible. 

“Well,” she starts, her hand coming to cup her face, the thumb brushing against her cheekbone. “You are not alone anymore, darling.”

Oh, the endearment makes her heart _soar_ , turns her body into something different – something luminous and loving, something soft for her to touch and love as she pleases. She could call her like that and she’d allow her to do anything with her. 

She’d even allow her to make a disaster out of her heart and life. 

She bends down to kiss her again, almost eagerly. “Please, say that again.”

Rey giggles, quietly, against her lips. “Darling?” she asks, tentatively, raising her eyebrows. Breha lets out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan, soft and wrecked at the same time. “ _Darling_. You are my darling, aren’t you?”

Oh, she wishes she could be. 

The words turn her body limp and pliant, as if they were an enchantment, whispered fervently against her lips and turning her liquid with want and pleasure. Her legs quiver, a familiar ache between her thighs, there where she wants – no, she _needs_ Rey. 

“Darling,” Rey whispers again, the word pressed against the column of her neck where she trails down open-mouthed kisses. “Let me give you the pleasure you deserve. Let me show you, you are not alone. Please. Please, my love.”

Breha nods, almost feverish with need.

Rey keeps on calling her that – darling, darling, _darling_ – as she presses Breha down into the mattress, her lithe body coming to cover hers as if to shield it even from the timid rays of sun that filter through the curtains. 

She keeps on murmuring the endearment even as she comes to press kisses down her chest, on the valley between her breasts, on her belly, her lips burning up a path down her body that makes Breha ache and arch off the bed and beg her, words and sounds falling from her mouth without her noticing. That blessed word is still on Rey’s lips as she finally parts her legs, almost _too easily,_ with her hands and brushes a finger between her folds, damp and wet from want. 

Breha is almost positive she’s sobbing.

“Darling,” she keeps on repeating, quietly, the word laced with something that resembles affection. _Love_. 

Something she’d regarded with idle curiosity, knowing all too well she would never experience such a wondrous feeling – until now. Until Rey.

“Breha,” she whispers, as if her name held all the meaning of the world. “You are so beautiful.”

She’s still keening from the heady mix of her words and her gentle touch, when she slides a finger, then two, into her heat. By now, Rey has learned her – as if she were a complicated embroidery pattern, her fingers know their way around her body and it is an effortless thing for her, to coax Breha into her release. Within a few minutes and a few strokes of her nimble fingers, combined with the circles she’s drawing on her clit with her thumb, Breha is panting and whimpering and twisting the sheets in her hands, biting down on her bottom lip to stifle her moans.

She is barely aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks, of the quivering of her legs, of the way her hands are tugging at Rey’s strands, almost desperately. 

“Let go, my love,” Rey murmurs, pressing a kiss to her stomach. “You deserve this.”

She shatters like fine glass around her fingers, flickers of light dancing like fire behind her eyelids as she screws her eyes shut, and for a moment the whole world disappears as she lies there, tremors wracking her body and her mind, her heart thundering in her chest and in her ears and this love, so pure and incandescent and radiant between their souls. 

When Rey climbs up her body again to kiss her, slowly and deeply and languidly, a smile pressed against her lips as if it were a confession and praises poured all over her skin as she trails down with her mouth, Breha knows it is a tiring, pointless game to pretend she is not absolutely in love with her.

**(iii)**

_all of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation_ _  
__my hands are shaking from holding back from you_

It begins, as wondrous love affairs often do, with the power of a glance.

It is a warm summer day when Miss Palpatine, long-lost granddaughter of Lord Palpatine, enters society, the chestnut waterfall of her hair brushing against her neck in a perfect ringlet and the hazel of her eyes glimmering in the ample rooms of Coruscant Royal Palace. Her perfect white gown, embroidered with golden thread at the hem, only highlights the creamy tones of her skin and the endearing flush of her cheeks, accentuated by the rouge her maid has so skillfully applied, grants her a fascinating air of innocence.

Breha watches her from afar – her graceful moves, her luminous smile, her elegant composure. It reminds her of poetry, music – something poised and perfect she cannot stop herself from looking at, as if it were a perfect painting that had caught her gaze. When Miss Palpatine looks her way for a fleeting second, something clutches her heart in a forceful grip and Breha knows, with dreading certainty, that she shall never be the same again.

What follows is a sonata – notes upon notes leading to a crescendo, able fingers running across the pianoforte, spinning a story fashioned out of music and silences. 

It starts with an invitation for tea– 

( _“Thank you,” Rey says, as she stirs the tea with her spoon. There’s something spontaneous, genuine in the way she moves – nothing that reminds her of the cold composure of everyone she’s ever known. “It was very kind of you to invite me. I have yet to make friends in the city. I have not known him for long, but it appears my grandfather is quite the intimidating man, isn’t he?”_ ) 

– and then it evolves in bright smiles upon seeing each other– 

( _“I_ _am so glad to know you will be at next ball, it is such a comfort to see a familiar face in a sea of strangers.”_ )

– picnics in Chandrila Park– 

( _“_ _I asked your maids what was your favorite pastry so I could bring it here,” Rey announces. Her eyes so bright, alight with fervent joy, and yet her smile is so gentle, as if it were a caress against her nervous heart. “It is my greatest wish to make you happy, after all. You have been so kind to me, one could not ask for a better friend.”_ ) 

– and long walks in the gardens– 

( _“_ _You were absolutely right, dear Breha, Alderaan’s gardens are magnificent this time of the year,” Rey says, then tilts her head to the side as if to look at her, eyes warm and adoring. The smile on her face is soft, yet full of meanings she can’t quite comprehend. “Though I have to admit their beauty is just a pale reflection of something else Alderaan has to offer.”)_

– and a tentative brush of naked fingers as they quietly sit in Lady Solo’s box during the Opera, their hands resting on the railings, Breha’s fingers scraping against Rey’s own for just a moment.

A touch so brief and light it could pass unnoticed, if it weren’t for the fact that they both had been waiting for this very moment, suspended on the precipice of something grand and terrible and magnificent.

Rey turns into her direction, slowly, and smiles at her with a softness she’d never glimpsed before, and Breha realizes too late she’s been pushed from that very precipice in a matter of seconds.

It then turns into stolen glances and longing stares, fingers laced together underneath the table when dinner occurs, thumbs brushing against the knuckles of Breha’s hand as if to soothe her. It turns into whispered words in the gardens, in private smiles during a ball, in a glimmering in the back of Rey’s eyes when they run into each other at Takodana Tea Shop. It turns into a quiet sort of fervor that makes Breha restless, tossing and turning in her bed at night, her heart fluttering like a bird, as if it died to be freed of its cage to run to her, its new mistress.

It turns into a quiet afternoon in the gardens, the sunset like an exquisite painting, overflowing with red and oranges and pink and casting a soft glow on Miss Palpatine’s features. She smiles as they walk through the rose garden, her hand clasped safely around Breha’s as if it were a secret they shared, and her smile a luminous thing among the rose blooms. 

The moment she stops and raises on her tiptoes to kiss her, Breha feels as if the world had suddenly tilted, as if there was nothing anchoring her to the ground but the touch of Rey’s lips against her own, soft and warm and hesitant, her breath mingled with hers, her fingers still wrapped around hers. 

It surprises her, the notion that a kiss could feel so – _good_.

She’d always imagined it to be something perfunctory – a necessary prelude to a much dreaded _pièce,_ performed in the darkness with no passion behind it. Instead, she finds out in this moment that a kiss is something that can happen in the middle of a radiant sunset, and it is able to turn her heart into a fluttery thing, to make her hands tremble, to make her weak in the knees. 

To make her _ache_ and _yearn_ and _want_.

( _“_ _Forgive me, I should not have dared,” Rey murmurs, then, against her mouth. She is so close she can hear the frantic beat of her heart. “It was improper of me.”_

_“No,” Breha replies. She brings Rey’s hands to her chest, her fingers resting against the place where her heart is fluttering. “You should dare. I beg you to dare.”_ )

The sonata spins, the notes higher and higher, as days pass by – hands sinking into tightly-knotted hair, undoing its delicate bounds in their frenesy, and lips avidly chasing each other, as if being parted were too great a pain. It turns into soft sighs and quiet giggles and surprised moans when a mouth starts to trail down an inviting neck, kissing a path down soft, untouched skin. It turns into a tender, innocent exploration – as if they were mapping uncharted territory together, hands brushing against a collarbone, a shoulder blade, the delicate inside of a wrist. 

Explorers of a brave, new world. 

Falling into bed together is an easy thing. Alderaan Hall is enormous and half-empty most of the time, with her parents on business trips and its small but trusted staff going about their own tasks, and no one seems to have a care for how often Miss Palpatine seems to visit. They spend whole mornings in bed, learning each other – hands brushing against a bare arm, fingers slowly undoing the laces of a corset, lips mouthing at the outline of a breast. 

Breha had never known life could offer her such pleasure. Such tenderness. Such warmth.

( _“_ _I’ve never been happier,” Rey murmurs, as she lies on Breha’s bed, her graceful limbs splayed out for her to see, the sheets barely covering her._

_There is no shame, no guilt in their lovemaking. Only the heat of her body, the softness of her smile, the happiness shining in her gaze. The pleasure she evokes with a touch of her lips, with the brushing of her fingers. The joy she feels upon seeing her._

_Breha smiles, her chest bursting. “I didn’t know there was so much happiness in the world._ )

She wishes this sonata would never end. 

“You seem to be distracted lately,” Rose, her dearest friend, notices, as they walk through Chandrila Park. Her gaze is focused on the swarm of people passing by – as if hoping to spot Mr Storm somewhere – but her observations are as sharp and acute as ever. “Has something happened? Have you found yourself a dashing young man to catch the attention of?”

Breha can’t do anything but laugh. “Not at all,” she replies, her heart beating furiously in her chest. “I am perfectly happy as I am.”

**(iv)**

_say my name and everything just stops_

It is a surprisingly intimate thing, Breha discovers, to tighten the laces of a lover’s corset. 

They both have undone them countless times in these weeks they have spent tumbling into Breha’s bed in a flurry of kisses and laughter and threatening happiness – sometimes urgently, fingers almost clawing at the laces as if they were both possessed by a burning need to be closer, and sometimes almost reverently, hands brushing against a clothed shoulder blade as they ventured down, making it look like an act of worship, rather than a simple attempt at undressing. 

They are both familiar with each other’s underwear, as they have spent a truly awful amount of time getting out of it, and yet, it always surprises Breha, how intimate and sacred it is, the moment of lacing Rey’s stays.

The sun shines through the curtains, bathing Breha’s room in a soft light that pours an indolent haze over them. She feels almost dazed, retreating in a far-away dreamland where she is sated and content and the world is suspended in time. As if they had carved a piece out of this world, a secret oasis made only of these precious, few moments they steal in her chambers – sometimes talking, sometimes kissing, sometimes doing things a lady should not be privy to.

It feels like a privilege and a curse at the same time and it is wonderful and terrifying, this surge of longing that explodes through her chest like a flower bursting into bloom as soon as she starts to help Rey dress again, as if knowing she has to let her go and come back to the real world.

“You have freckles there, too,” she murmurs, quietly.

The fabric of Rey’s chemise is so thin she can see right through it, as her fingers brush against her clothed shoulder blade, as tentative as a kiss. Her freckles shine as golden as the light that pours from the windows, a pattern she is starting to learn by heart. Rey sighs, as if reveling in her touch as much as Breha does.

Her heart is an aching creature in her ribcage.

“I didn’t know,” Rey says, catching her gaze in the mirror as Breha slowly resumes her work and tightens the laces of her corset. The curve of her lips is so familiar it is hard to remember she has known her for only a few weeks and when she smiles at her, softly and tenderly, Breha feels her breath catch in her throat. “You are the first to see me like this.”

_But I won’t be the last_ , she’s on the cusp of saying, but she bites the words back. It is a pointless thing to discuss, after all – they both know this quiet happiness they’ve found and built for themselves is not made to last, and what use would it be, to linger on it and taint this shining, golden day with the knowledge it could all crumble down at any moment?

Still, it is a difficult thought to banish from her mind. Rey is radiant and splendid – a magnificent creature, a goddess made flesh. Breha has no doubt she shall end up married by the end of the season and she wonders – what will her husband be like? Will he be gentle with her? Will he love her as much as Rey deserves to be loved? 

(As much, Breha thinks – as much as she loves her?)

Will he help her dress again in the morning, his fingers brushing against her clothed shoulder-blades as Breha’s are right now? Will he take the time to count all the freckles scattered all over her skin, as if it were a secret map reserved for his eyes only? He won’t know how to tighten a corset – he never had to. Will he have Rey patiently teach him how to work the laces, her fingers brushing against his as she helps him through it, a touch so tender and intimate it turns into an act of love? Or will he lose his patience and will let a maid take care of it, unaware of the privilege he’s giving up on?

“Breha, darling, what is the matter?” Rey asks, gently, startling her out of her thoughts. She catches Rey’s gaze into the mirror, only to discover that she’s frowning, her delicate eyebrows furrowing together. “Is everything alright? You seemed lost in your thoughts. You scared me for a moment.”

_I want to do this forever,_ Breha wants to say. _I want to lace your stays every morning and help you undress every night. I want to break my fast with you and dine with you and spend every waking moment with you. I want to walk with you in the gardens during sunny days and lie with you on the sofas of our drawing room when it rains. I want to read you poetry and let you play with my hair. I want to kiss your lips and hold your hand and never to be parted from you again._

But she cannot say this, she knows.

This is only a fleeting moment of happiness, a brief parenthesis in their lives they shall have to let go of when the time comes. 

So, instead, she curves her lips into a tentative smile. “I am perfectly alright. I was only thinking how beautiful you are,” she says, then bends down to press a kiss to her clothed shoulder and Rey laughs, softly. 

It seems to Breha as if this simple sound could fill her bedchambers. Her heart, too – as if it were a room in which Rey had made herself perfectly comfortable, with no intention of ever leaving. 

“You are quite the flatterer, Miss Solo,” she teases, wrinkling her nose, but then she catches her gaze again in the mirror and the lines of her face melt into something softer, more tender.

Hunched over her as she is, her arms wrapped around her waist and her head resting on her shoulder, Breha feels as if she could spend her whole lifetime like this and Rey must have been able to read the thought in the back of her eyes, because she brings her hand down to cover hers and lets out a dreamy sigh.

Her fingers brush against her knuckles, the usual gesture born out of a need to soothe her. 

“You are beautiful too, my darling,” she whispers, her voice so faint and quiet, as if she were telling her a secret she trusted Breha with and Breha can’t help the slight hitch in her breath. “Sometimes I look at you and I cannot believe that you are real.”

The words are impossible. Were this another occasion, she’d think of herself as the object of some cruel mockery. She has never been _beautiful_ – in fact, she has been told multiple times she is not handsome enough to tempt anyone into marriage, as if her face were a mixture of features that did not really agree with one another, a horror no one seems to be able to withstand.

And yet, when Rey looks at her like that, she can’t help but believe her. The wonder in the back of her gaze makes Breha feel as if she were something extraordinary – not something graceful and refined, the perfect doll they all wish her to be, but a force to be reckoned with. As if she were a furious storm wreaking havoc on the coastline or an explosion at the heart of the universe – something too grand, too fearful to be appreciated by untrained eyes.

She gulps and raises up again. 

One of her hands comes to rest again at Rey’s hip, tender and yet possessive, while the other moves away the thick curtain of her hair so she can bend a bit and press a delicate kiss to the nape of her neck. 

This is the only way she knows to remind Rey of how loved she is.

The laces of her corset are forgotten for a moment more, when Rey turns into her arms to press fervent kisses to her lips – but it is perfectly alright to Breha. 

She will rejoice at the possibility of tightening them again later. 

**(v)**

_everyone thinks that they know us_ _  
__but they know nothing about us_

The gentle glow of the lanterns casts a soft light on Rey’s features, turning her worried but lovely face into a masterpiece of radiance and shadows, when she steps in the garden, the trail of her gown brushing lightly against the carpet of grass with a low rustle. 

It is such a familiar sound – Breha’s heart feels already on the verge of bursting, as if hearing her walk into her direction had brought forth a wave of happiness she wasn’t prepared for. 

She never is, she muses. As if everything Rey did came as a surprise, undoing bit by bit the tight laces she’d put around her own heart, and now she stands naked, vulnerable in front of her. A creature of longing and hope and a desperate sort of love, that aches for her. 

“Oh, there you are,” she says, now. The frown taking hold of her face disappears, melting into the soft, private smile she only wears when she’s around Breha, which does nothing to help her poor, eager heart. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you’d fled.”

Breha lets out a gentle laughter, tilting her head to the side as she watches Rey approach the stone bench upon which she’s currently sitting. There’s nothing of the careful, calculated grace of her dances in these movements – as if she’d shed that mask at the first glimpse of her, as if she were allowing herself to be her true self while sitting in this quiet garden with her. 

Breha feels her heart _soar_ at the thought, though she knows it is not wise. And yet, what is the point of lying to oneself? She loves her – this woman made of light and warmth and fierce defiance, who looks at Breha as if she’d invented the universe just for her.

“I have to admit,” she starts, as Rey sits down next to her, her body warm and inviting as always. The low cut of the gown grants her a peek of those freckled collarbones she’s spent so much time kissing and she has to fight back the urge to brush her fingers against her pulse point, just to know if her heart beats as loudly as Breha’s. “I have been tempted to flee.”

Rey laughs too – an incandescent thing, as if the sun had burst, in all its fiery glory, during this lonely night. She is so luminous – a bright thing, the start by which Breha wishes she could set sail.

“Please, don’t.” She leans in, rests her gloved hand upon Breha’s. Though there are two layers of silk separating their fingers, Breha can feel the warmth of her touch all the same, as if it had little to do with her skin and everything to do with the intimacy of her gesture. No one had ever touched her like Rey does, so surely and yet tenderly. “What would I do without you? These balls would be so dull without your presence.”

The music coming from Ahch-To Hall carries a little in this garden, violins swelling in the comfortable silence between them, and Breha feels as if she could stay in this moment _forever_. 

Oh, if only she could stop time – if only she could make this moment dilate into an eternity, Rey’s hand in her own, her presence so soothing and exciting at the same time, the beat of her heart so loud it’s a wonder no one has already discovered them, a universe of longing in the small space between their bodies. 

Love, Breha realizes, makes you wish for impossible things. 

“I thought–” she starts, staring down at their joined hands, white silk upon white silk. Still, she can perfectly remember the pattern of freckles on the back of her hand and she traces it absentmindedly with her fingers. “I thought you were dancing with Lord Hux.”

She snorts.

“Oh, please. I sent him to fetch me a glass of lemonade,” she replies, with a chuckle that Breha knows she only lets out in her presence. 

It is elating, the idea of seeing the real Rey, underneath the mask she wears in society, and oh, how she loves her, this creature made of luminous laughters and tender smiles and sighs and snorts and yawns. She scrunches up her nose when she’s delighted and she snores a bit when she falls asleep and Breha loves these scraps of intimacy she manages to steal, these tiny details that she’ll hold close to her heart before the world will pull them apart.

“He shall worry for you if you don’t return soon.”

She rolls her eyes at her words, though there is still a hint of a playful smile on her lips. “Let him worry, I do not care. He’s been stepping on my toes for the whole evening, I think I am granted a moment of respite.”

The garden fills with the sound of their laughter. It is such an easy thing for Rey, to coax a laugh out of her, when Breha has felt as if she hasn’t laughed her whole life. And yet, it is effortless now – her lips curve into a smile more often than not and sometimes the muscles of her face hurt when she’s with Rey, and she’s never been quite as happy as she is in these quiet moments when they are alone. 

Then, after a second of silence, Rey adds, her tone somehow somber, “My grandfather wants me to marry him.”

The words hang in the air for a moment, unexpected and eerie in their definitiveness.

Breha turns into her direction, as if to find some sort of confirmation in the lines of Rey’s face. “What?” she asks, her breath short on her lips. Her heart stills in her chest, as if Rey’d just pierced it with a knife and the happiness fades from her soul, like a handprint on the shoreline. “Lord Hux? He’s _detestable_.”

A corner of Rey’s lips pulls up in a smile, though there’s no trace of her usual mirth on the familiar curve of her mouth.

“Aren’t all men?” she asks, with a shrug. She must sense her shock, because she squeezes her hand, her thumb coming to caress the back of it through the gloves, and then sighs. “My grandfather, especially. He’s a vile, awful old man who squandered his fortune over the years and called me back to him only to sell me to the highest bidder before he can fall from grace. I suppose Lord Hux will do just fine.”

Her heart seems to be made of stone and – oh, why does it hurt _so much,_ still? She’d known, from the very start, how doomed it all was – a mad, impossible affair that would only end in burning flames and tears she could never shed. She’d known from the beginning that this was the only ending they would ever get – unhappily married to a man who barely pays them any attention, if they’re fortunate enough.

And yet she’d foolishly let herself forget it – and she’d allowed herself to fall in love, she’d allowed herself to let Rey see her heart for what it was, eager and vulnerable as it is, and now she will have to watch as Rey slips between her fingers and it’s so _soon_ and it’s not _fair_. 

Shouldn’t she – _they_ – have more time? Haven’t they any right to be _happy?_

She gulps, averting her eyes as if afraid Rey would read all of it in the back of her gaze. 

“Has he proposed?” she asks, her voice trembling just slightly.

It takes her an enormous effort not to fall into pieces – not to beg her to love her, still. And yet, Rey knows her – of course she does, because Breha has spent the last few weeks learning her and it is only right, that Rey has learned her too. 

Rey’s hand is still resting upon hers, their fingers intertwined, and when she squeezes it again, a wordless gesture of reassurance, Breha feels her heart in her throat. Though it would be wiser to let her go – to let her hopes and her love go –, she can’t bear to part from her, as though she could change the outcome, if only she’d hold her tight enough. 

“Not yet, but grandfather is sure it will happen soon,” Rey murmurs, her voice almost mournful. Then, she squeezes her hand again, this time almost purposefully as if to catch her attention, and adds, so softly and yet so surely, “But I do not intend to marry.”

Breha’s heart jumps in her chest again, twisting almost painfully. “I do not think it is for you to choose.”

Rey’s grip on her hand tightens. “It will be,” she replies and she sounds so – _sure_. Confident. Fierce and stubborn the way Breha has learned only Rey knows how to be, that special mix of hopefulness and spite that makes her love her so much. 

Is it foolish to believe her? Is it foolish to wish for something different? 

“Rey–”

“I want to read, to learn, to sharpen my mind. I want to travel the world and see for myself all the wonders it holds. Besides–” She brings her hand to her face, tilting it gently into her direction, her gloved thumb brushing against Breha’s cheekbone as if to smooth the soft skin there. “I cannot marry Hux, for my heart already belongs to another.”

Breha frowns, her breath stuck in her throat. “Another?”

Rey’s lips curve into a tentative smile, though her eyebrows arch up in a teasing manner. 

“Yes. I want to spend my life with the one I love.” Her thumb slides down, brushing against her bottom lips as tenderly as if it were a kiss. “You, Breha. I want to spend my life with you. In case it wasn’t clear enough, my heart belongs to you.”

It is such a wondrous thing, the idea of being loved. 

There’s so much she could say, and yet the only word that escapes her lips is a stunned, “Oh.”

It is such a wild thought. 

Breha has spent her whole _life_ begging for love and yet feeling too inadequate for it. Not graceful enough while dancing, not pretty enough in her dresses, not skilled enough with her needlework. Too stubborn, too quick to flare up, a temper no man could ever love – her whole life has felt as if it were a play and she hadn’t learned her lines before, an actor thrust on the stage without any indication or suggestion to guide her through. 

She’d tried, really – she’d learned how to dance, she stood there at the _modiste_ while her mother chose which fabric would suit her complexion best, she’d put hours and hours into her needlework even when her hands hurt, she’d learned how to exist in this world and to bend herself to its rules, and yet nothing has ever been enough, as if this love she’d been chasing came at too high a cost and she could never afford it.

And now, Rey gives it to her, willingly, freely. As if it belonged to her, rightfully. 

She cannot fathom to be loved, not like this. 

Her lips tremble, just like her heart does in her chest, when she asks her, “You love _me_?”

Rey’s smile turns into something softer and tender, her eyes glimmering as if they were stars, and all of this comes like a knife to her heart, this pleasure bordering onto pain again, so intense and overwhelming, like a wave she cannot help but being pulled under by.

“I cannot understand why it is such a surprise for you, my darling,” she replies, her voice low and gentle as if it were a caress, a kiss, a secret pressed right against her mouth. 

Her palm comes to cradle her face again, silk against skin, and oh, how she wishes she could get rid of that awful glove, preventing her from feeling the familiar warmth of her hand. How she wishes she could bring her palm to her lips and kiss it, fervently, her mouth to her skin, in the only way she has to tell her how earth-shattering it is, to be loved by her.

She lets out a soft laughter, of all things. “I can think of a few reasons,” she says, which elicits a smile from Rey – soft and tender and private, the smile she’s always gifted her from the very start. 

“Oh, my love,” she breathes out, so tenderly and lovingly Breha feels the first tears start pooling in her eyes. She tugs her down, slightly, and leans in to rest their forehead together and the feeling of it – the intimacy, the closeness, the sacred comfort it brings – elicits a sharp tug of her heart that she knows it’s happiness, though it feels like pain. “You are _perfect,_ my darling Breha. Words cannot describe how much I love you. My heart has been yours ever since you invited me for tea and smiled at me so many weeks ago, and every time we part I feel as if you were taking a piece of myself with you. I love you, Breha. I cannot imagine a life without you.”

It is a natural thing, to bend down and kiss her, and if someone shall see them, then to hell with them, she could not care less this time. Her lips tremble, her hands shake there, where they rest upon Rey’s shoulders, and the kiss is merely a brushing of lips, tentative as the first letters traced by an untrained hand, and yet it feels as if she had been waiting her whole life for this moment, this surety, this tenderness.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs, then. Desperate and pleading, her mouth chases hers, as she buries words of love against her lips. “I love you. You have stolen my heart from the very first moment. Please, do not marry Lord Hux. Please.”

Rey brings a hand to her face, cradling it with the utmost tenderness and presses promises against her mouth. 

“I do not plan to, my love,” she whispers. “I shall do everything I can so we can be together.”

For the first time in her life, Breha feels hope blossom in her chest, and she is not frightened of seeing it wither. 

  
  


**(vi)**

_and I woke up just in time_

Breha wakes in the middle of the night to a rattling sound coming from the windows of her bedchamber.

For a moment, she lies on her back underneath her sheets, staring at the familiar ceiling of her rooms and wondering if she’s dreamed it. The house is quiet – her parents are probably asleep in their room and judging by the darkness pouring from the windows, it is way too early for the staff to be up and about already. 

The sound of blood pulsing and roaring in her veins, rushing to her ears, is the only noise she can hear from miles.

She’s almost slipping again into a blissful sleep, when the sound comes back.

It’s a soft thud against her windows, too deliberate for it to be accidental. It comes again, and again, and then, a familiar voice calls out– 

“Breha! Open the window!”

Her body listens to those whispered words before her mind can comprehend what is happening, as if her limbs were responding to a familiar call – she sits up into the bed and rushes out of it to the window, her nightgown flowing around her like the reminder of a ghost. Though it is summer, the night air is way too cold for her to sleep without closing her window, so she has to work the lock open with her trembling fingers, and then, when it falls open and she finally looks down – 

There she is.

_Rey._

Her hair is coiled in a simple updo and she’s wearing clothes that are unfamiliar to her eyes, though she can’t see them well from a distance. And yet, her eyes shine just as brightly as always and her lips curve into that familiar smile that always makes Breha feel as if she were about to faint.

“Rey,” she breathes out, surprise and happiness mingling in her voice, like waves lapping up at the same shoreline. “What the hell are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

Rey’s smile is dazzling, even in the darkness of Alderaan Hall’s garden. “I cannot explain it like this.” Her voice is a bit tentative, as if she weren’t sure she were allowed to ask her this, when she tells her, “Please. Come down.”

For a moment, Breha allows herself to imagine what her mother would say – how outrageous, how scandalous, how unbecoming it would be to rush down the stairs into the garden to meet a secret lover with the favor of the night. And yet, she has already crossed so many lines that this does not feel like a line at all, but just another step in a familiar dance they’ve danced ever since Miss Palpatine first debuted in society.

So she murmurs, “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Her hands tremble as she closes the window again, as if not to leave traces of this secret meeting under the stars. She grabs the silk robe she’d discarded before climbing into bed and puts it around her shoulders as she rushes down the stairs, mindful not to make any noise and wake the servants. 

Her heart threatens to spill out of her lips as soon as she reaches the gardens, in a burst of happiness that leaves her out of breath. Rey smiles when she sees her – the secret, private smile she’s always gifted her, as if it were a confession pressed against her lips. It looks even brighter, in the solemn quiet around them.

She wants to kiss it again.

It dawns to her only as she runs up to her – “ _A lady doesn’t run_ ,” her mother would say, but oh, how to convey this eagerness in her limbs, this sacred desire to be reunited with a body she knows so well, a soul that she has learned to map as if it were a star chart? – that her clothes are different from what she has grown accustomed to. Instead of the usual gown, Rey is wearing a white, linen shirt and a pair of breaches, a doublet haphazardly thrown over her shoulders, though it looks a size too big for her lithe body. Her hair is coiled up, and dressed like this, she could almost pass for a boy.

Breha suddenly halts, her eyes fixed on her as if she wanted to study her.

“What–” she starts, confused. The cold air of the night bites into her skin through the flimsy layer of her nightgown and it is an effort to utter the next few words, “Why are you dressed like this? And how did you get here?”

Rey lets out a soft laughter that seems to tug at her heart and takes a step into her direction, her hands finding their way to her arms and slowly rubbing them, as if to give her a spark of warmth.

A fire burns through her at the touch and she forgets she’d ever been cold.

“I climbed over the back wall, I needed adequate garments” she says, as her fingers slide down to fix the robe around her body and tighten it at her waist. Her eyebrows arch up as soon as she glimpses Breha’s surprised expression. “You forget, my love, that I was raised in an orphanage in the countryside. Climbing walls was the first thing I learned.”

She cannot make sense of it, but it feels so effortless to reach out and grab Rey’s hand, intertwining their fingers and bringing them to her lips. Her skin is cool to the touch, courtesy of the chilly air of the night, but her palm is as soft as always and though they’ve seen each other that very morning, she can’t pass the opportunity to lavish her knuckles with kisses. 

“You are full of surprises, my dear,” she replies, eliciting a silvery giggle from Rey that she muffles by biting down her lip, lest the sound could alert someone of their presence. “What are you doing here? I thought we would see each other in the morning. Has something happened?”

She lets out a deep breath and looks down at their joined hands, her thumb coming to caress her knuckles with a sort of familiar intimacy that makes Breha long for more. More of this – this sacred thing they share between them, a whole lifetime spent doting on each other, kissing each other. 

Being outrageously happy together. 

“I have been thinking,” she starts, darting a glance in her direction. There’s a glimmer in the back of her eyes that Breha has rarely seen, but that makes her think of stubborn determination and fierce defiance. “Lord Hux has proposed tonight.”

Her heart sinks, as if it were a ship, falling into the depths of the ocean. “So soon?”

Rey sighs, wrinkling her nose in irritation. 

“ _Men_ ,” she breathes out, disgust so easy to detect in her voice, as if she’d stepped in mud. “They cannot wait to own you, one way or another. The wedding is to be celebrated one month from now.”

Breha tightens her grip on her hand, as if she could hold onto her and prevent her from disappearing. Fading into the nothingness of married life – a creature once so bright and luminous, destined to wither behind the walls of a lonely country estate.

“I thought we’d have more time,” she murmurs, her eyes welling up with tears she knows it is pointless to shed.

Rey tilts her head, then brings her free hand to her face, cupping her cheek with infinite tenderness. Her skin is warmer now, as if Breha’s presence had slipped like a tendril of heat into her body.

“We will have more time, my love,” she murmurs, in her voice a fervent intensity that is reserved for preachers and lovers. A mad sort of ardor takes hold of the delicate lines of her face when she steps even closer, their bodies finding their way to each other almost without them noticing. “I told you I have been thinking. I’ve spent the evening trying to devise a plan and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is only one way we can be together.” The light in the back of her eyes is bordering on the edge of _madness_ , bright with something Breha doesn’t know how to define, when she adds, “We have to run away.”

The words hang in the solemn silence of the garden for a moment, before Breha is able to truly grasp them and then they come as a knife to her heart. It is so sudden and unexpected she can’t help but gasp as she tries to make sense of it. 

“ _What?_ ” she asks, surprised. “We cannot run away! We’re– We cannot– Where would we go?”

Rey’s answer is a smile, bright and hopeful and everything Breha loves about her. 

“Everywhere we want to.”

Oh, how many times has she thought about it? As if allowing herself to indulge in a fantasy, in the safety of her dull, boring life – she’d imagined a lifetime spent with Rey in some remote corner of the world where their families could never find them, where they could be happy together, trading jokes and kisses in the golden light of the sun.

But that was a fantasy and this is _reality_.

“That is most absurd,” she starts, her own words trembling on her lips like tears she cannot allow herself to shed. “We cannot run away. We have families and responsibilities and duties and we can’t–”

She doesn’t realize she’s shaking until Rey’s arms come to wrap around her body and oh, it is such a heady feeling, the press of her skin against hers through the thin layer of her nightgown. She cannot imagine ever getting tired of it. 

She cannot imagine ever giving it up. 

She’d follow her through hell, if it meant she could hold her hand, feel her touch, kiss her lips.

Does it really matter, now, if hell is a place they can run away to? Hasn’t she crossed so many lines? What else is there, beside _this,_ this ruinous, incandescent love? She cannot bear the thought of letting her go, of living her dull, safe life as if Rey had never walked into it and wrecked it. 

What else can she do, beside following this string she feels tied around her heart, preventing her from breathing as it tugs her toward Rey?

“Breha, my love,” Rey starts, taking her face into both of her hands and tugging her down, so she can rest her forehead against hers. Up close, the golden freckles on her fair complexion seem to turn silver as the moonlight shines over them, and Breha cannot do anything but _look_ at her, as though she were a magnificent creature come to steal her away. “I cannot stand to live like this anymore. Everytime we part, my heart aches in my chest as if it had been pierced by an arrow and it does not stop until we are reunited again. I cannot bear to be parted with you, not now, not ever. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

She realizes she’s weeping only when Rey gently brushes the tears away from her cheeks with the touch of her fingertips.

“Please,” she adds, just as fervently. “Please, say yes.”

“This is a child’s fantasy,” Breha murmurs, but her voice is faint, her words shaky. She knows she does not believe in what she’s saying – her resolve is crumbling down, in front of Rey’s fervent sort of love.

“No,” Rey corrects her, softly. A smile tugs at her lips and she can hear the trembling exhale of her breath, before she adds, “This is a proposal.”

Her traitorous heart stops for a moment and then it starts to beat frantically in her chest, as though it searched for a way to break out of its prison.

“I do not have fancy jewelry to gift to you or a country estate where we could spend our honeymoon. I know we cannot marry for real. But–” She hesitates for a moment, as if fearing rejection, but her gaze is clear, limpid. So blissfully sure of it. “But I love you. It is very simple, my darling. I cannot live without you. I would sell my whole world, if it meant I could be with you.”

And oh, what is there more to argue? It is impossible and absurd, but how could she ever refuse all of this? A lifetime spent together, the two of them and the whole world in front of them, with its endless possibilities and maddening happiness.

It feels as if it were a dream.

“Yes,” she hears herself murmur, though she’s not aware of her own words “Yes, _yes_.”

There will be time to come up with a plan – it will take both of them a week to arrange everything. Rey will book them a place in the first carriage that will leave Coruscant in the dead of night. She’ll steal the remains of Palpatine’s fortune to fund their travels ( _“I hope he’ll miss it,” she shall tease, then, when they shall be safe and out of the city_ ) and she will pocket the diamond necklace Lord Hux had gifted her ( _“We could sell it if we need to,” she shall say, between kisses_ ). Breha will write a short letter for her parents, asking them not to look for her, and a longer one for Rose. She’ll be careful to omit details that could have her found and instead asks her only friend to be happy for her. 

She thinks she will be.

They’ll venture into the open world together, their hands intertwined, their palms pressed against each other. No layer of silk between them, only soft skin pressed against soft skin.

But for now, they hold onto each other and laugh and weep and when Rey tugs her down for a kiss, Breha feels as if her life were beginning for the first time.

( **epilogue** )

_now i wake up by your side_

In the far-away village of Varikyno, in the Lake County, a small cottage resides right at the place where the town ends and the forest starts – a place between worlds, where the old spirits of the woods tumble sometimes into the present day. 

The locals call it Wisteria Cottage, for the violet and lilac blooms seem to have taken hold of the façade of the building, growing wild and free and wrapping it in their scented embrace. It has been vacant for many years, left to dust and wildflowers – too far-away from the village, too isolated, too terrifying at night, with the forest so close and wild animals coming to crash into its modest garden.

Now, though, two women live in it.

They arrived a luminous day toward the beginning of spring, when the wisteria was in full bloom and the cottage looked as if taken out of a dream, wildflowers climbing over the front porch, the grass as tall as their knees. They settled in as if they’d always been there – as if the cottage had sat on the border between the forest and the village for a century, dust settling in, time passing it by, patiently waiting for them to come around. 

New life was breathed into the old thing – the grass was cut and tended, the flowers left free to bloom in a symphony of colors. They fixed the caved-in rooftop and the windows were cleaned anew, shining bright as the sun filtered through them. The locals couldn’t believe their eyes when their gaze fell on the cottage they’d come to know – now a lively house, the smoke rising from the chimney in soft tendrils when spring nights ran a little bit too cold. 

The two women have often been seen in the village on bright, sunny days – simple clothes and a radiant smile on both of their faces, a basket hanging at the arm of the taller one, their hands intertwined as if they could not bear to let go of each other for more than a second. There’s an other-worldly look about them, as if they were two ancient creatures who’d stumbled on this world by mistake, but had found it beautiful enough to stay. 

The children have started to refer to them as _the fairies of Wisteria Cottage_.

It amuses Breha infinitely.

“You are smiling,” Rey muses, as she rests with her head on her chest, one arm safely wrapped around her torso.

It is a clear summer morning and they are lying in their bed. It is, quite predictably, nothing like the soft mattress Breha was once used to, barely a year ago, but, regardless, she finds it perfectly agreeable – she’s never slept better as she did in these past few weeks in this charming cottage, with Rey wrapped around her as if she could not stand to part from her even in dreams.

“It is hard not to smile,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss on her brow. Her fingers trace absent-mindedly patterns on Rey’s arm through the thin layer of her nightgown, and it feels almost sinful to have all the time in the world to linger in bed with her lover. “I am most happy, after all, with you by my side.”

Rey giggles, a silvery sound that fills their small cottage with warmth. “Who knew Miss Solo was such a romantic?”

Breha smiles again – as if Rey had casted a spell on her, and she could not help it, when it came to her. She thinks she has smiled more in this year they have spent together, in this secluded world they have built for themselves, than in her entire life.

“I fear, my dear Miss Palpatine–” she teases her, rolling on top of her and pressing her down into the mattress, with only a content sigh from her. Her lips are inches away from Rey’s, teasing her, drawing small, eager sounds from her. “–that this is entirely your fault.”

“Oh,” Rey breathes out, then surges forward to press her lips against Breha’s in a chaste imitation of a kiss. Her heart thunders in her chest, as if it couldn’t quite get accustomed to the idea of being loved so quietly and tenderly. So _fully_. “It is then my duty to apologize. Please, allow me, my love. I shall be thorough.”

They both laugh at that, then words slowly fade into nothing as lips begin to press fervent kisses to soft skin. 

It is a beautiful day. The sun shines quietly on both of them, streaming through the windows of their home. For a second, Breha braces herself on her arms and allows herself this moment – this basking in the sunlight, Rey’s body underneath hers and no rush, no haste, no desperation. There’s no ball to attend, no suitor to bear the idle talk of, no needlework to get to. There is no one to discover them, no terror mixed with this happiness. She can slowly explore Rey’s skin and search for the places that make her arch off the bed and sigh, she can kiss her for as much as she wants to, she can fall asleep in her arms without having to worry of being seen.

She can _love_ her, as this love isn’t doomed or temporary anymore. It is, instead, as ever-lasting as the roots of the wisteria that covers the façade of their new home, blooming with renovated vigor every year. 

Rey must be able to sense something, as if her thoughts were written right on the lines of her face, because she cups her cheek into her hands and smiles up at her. “What is it, my love?”

Breha can only smile. She burrows into Rey’s touch, pressing a kiss to her palm with the reverence of a pilgrim kneeling in church. “I meant what I said. I am happy. Utterly and devastatingly happy.”

Rey smiles too, as if her words had elicited a matching happiness in her soul.

“Oh, my darling Breha,” she breathes out, her voice laced with so much love and fondness it feels almost humbling, to be the recipient of such fervor. Her fingers come to brush her hair away from her forehead, as if to see her better, and then she cradles her face in her hand again. “You fill my life with so much warmth and happiness. I truly did not know what it meant to be alive before I met you.” Then, she wrinkles her nose and lets out a giggle. “Oh, no. You have made a romantic out of me too, Miss Solo. This is unforgivable.”

The laughter that explodes on her lips is warm and luminous and giddy. It feels only natural to bend down and press it against her lips as she kisses her and kisses her and kisses her for what it feels like a lifetime. 

They do not leave the bed for a long, long time. It is perfectly alright, though.

They are, after all, home. 

**Author's Note:**

> as usual, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com)! i probably won't be able to write a lot rn because i have two (almost three) exams in february and i still have a thesis to write if i want to graduate by the end of the year, but i will probably pop in with a text/twitter fic or two every now and then, and then come back here on ao3 too!! ❤


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